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Tuberculosis struck 10 million people worldwide in 2017, killing 1.6 million of them — a toll greater than that of H.I.V., malaria, measles and Ebola combined. TB is the leading infectious killer around the globe; nearly 1.8 billion people are carrying the bacterium that causes the disease. The world is sorely in need of new ways to prevent TB, not just treat it. Drugs to stave off the infection do exist, but the monthslong regimens are difficult and people often do not finish the prescribed courses. (Mandavilli, 9/23)

When it comes to fighting heart disease among low-income individuals, researchers find that an all-in-one pill may be just what's needed to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. (Neighmond, 9/23)

More than 5,000 years after the Sumerians discovered they could quell aches with gum from poppies, medical science is still uncertain about who will develop chronic pain, how to prevent it and what to do when it occurs. The reasons the same insult to the body can leave one person with short-term discomfort and another with permanent misery have eluded researchers. "Chronic pain is incredibly complex,” said Benjamin Kligler, national director of the Integrative Health Coordinating Center at the Veterans Health Administration. “It is interwoven with all kinds of psychological, emotional and spiritual dimensions, as well as the physical. Honestly, the profession of medicine doesn’t have a terribly good understanding, overall, of that kind of complexity.” (Bernstein, 9/23)

As a lifelong Alzheimer’s researcher, Dorene Rentz sees many brain scans with amyloid plaques, a telltale sign of the disease that ravages the brains and memories of its victims. But there’s one scan she’s unable to see: that of her husband, Ray Berggren. Never did she think that one day her 73-year-old husband would be part of a clinical trial she helped design, whose overall cognitive outcomes she will eventually help analyze. (Reddy, 9/23)